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Dessert

Cream Cakes

A baked cake made with water, butter, flour, eggs, baking soda, and a sweet cream filling of milk, sugar, eggs, flour, vanilla, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the choux dough

  1. Boil the water in a pot.

  2. Once boiling, add the butter and stir in the flour.

  3. Stir the mixture for 5 minutes.

  4. Let it cool, then stir in the 10 eggs and baking soda.

  5. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into greased pans.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 20 minutes.

  2. After the cakes are baked, cut around the edge and remove the center to create an opening.

  3. For the cream, boil the milk and sugar together.

  4. When boiling, add the beaten eggs and 1 cup of flour.

  5. Once cooked, add vanilla and lemon to taste.

  6. Fill the opening with the cream mixture.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and set the cream, giving structure and richness to both parts.
Flour
Forms the starch base that gives the dough and cream body and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the dough.
Baking soda
Helps the dough rise and lighten as it bakes.
Milk
Provides the liquid base of the cream, adding moisture and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and adds body to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the dough cool before adding the eggs. Eggs added to a very hot starch mixture can scramble or cook unevenly, and the dough needs to be cool enough to hold its shape and stay smooth when the eggs are beaten in.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, egg, cream, milk, sugar, vanilla):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, cream, milk, sugar, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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